#monseigneur myriel

[wilwywaylan]

Aaaaand there they are, all of them ! Can you believe it took me more than one year to do all that, starting with the sketches !

I love them all ! but I think my favourite is probably the Jehan one.

ID texts in the alt description.

[mali-umkin]

Mgr Miollis, who inspired the character of Mgr Myriel in Les Misérables, could soon be beatified. If only the Church took upon herself to actually study Mgr Myriel's conversation with the Conventionnel G.!

The real man went into exile during the Revolution, as he refused to take the oath on the Constitution. If he did not receive the blessing of a former Conventionnel, he very possibly did allow a convict, Paul Maurin, to take shelter in his home.

[nortism]

I think he’s gonna be fine you guys

[fiction-podcast-lover]

[rated-r-for-grantaire]

I absolutely adore Éponine, she’s one of my favorite characters (in general, not just in Les Mis), so no one take it the wrong way when I say I absolutely prefer the Bishop being the one to lead Valjean to Heaven in the epilogue. Not so much musically, but more so from a character standpoint. The Bishop is the one who saved Valjean’s soul. Valjean would not know G-d if not for Myriel; so of course Myriel is the best man to lead him to Heaven. The ideal production, to me, has the Bishop leading Valjean to Heaven and also has Javert in Heaven. Unfortunately, such productions seem to not exist (and I am so so so so willing to be corrected about that).

[maglorslostsilmaril]

sister simplice 🤝 bishop myriel

straight-up lying to cops for no other reason than vibes

[overwhelmedandlonely]

reading the brick fully for the first time and the priest is so funny? like genuinely making me chuckle. i love him

[alphazed]

I've been drawing more les mis at artschool, because of the project that might or might not get finished

So have these sketches! I chose colors on what felt right, Valjean and others coming later probably

Excuse the shitty ass quality lmao

[wilwywaylan]

And with those three, the series is officially DONE !!!!! Can't believe I'm finally over. I've been working on them for more than a year, everything together, and wow, now I'm done !

This may be my first time drawing Myriel (except for one time where he was barely seen) !

Valjean and Javert have five cats and they all have stars / constellations names, because they can. Also this is Javert's favourite bedspread.

IDs in the alt text !

[dolphin1812]

M Myriel pretty directly states it, but it was interesting to read this:

"“In case of epidemics,—we have had the typhus fever this year; we had the sweating sickness two years ago, and a hundred patients at times,—we know not what to do.”

“That is the thought which occurred to me.”

“What would you have, Monseigneur?” said the director. “One must resign one’s self.”

This conversation took place in the gallery dining-room on the ground floor."

The distribution of space, as M Myriel points out, defies logic, but it's socially expected because of class differences: the bishop has a mansion for himself and two others while the hospital is overcrowded. It's true that the director couldn't ask Myriel for this space and that Myriel's offer mainly showcases his charitable nature and true commitment to helping his community, even at a personal cost. At the same time, I found the mention of "resignation" fascinating. Myriel isn't only noticing that keeping this much space for himself that he doesn't need when others do and he's responsible for serving them is unjust; he's refusing to accept a problem as unsolvable and to resign himself to the existing system. Myriel, then, is not only distinguished by his charity. He's also hopeful and persistent.

Of course, he can't solve every problem individually (Hugo himself points that out in this chapter). He also isn't calling for systemic change, exactly. For instance, while he indirectly critiques the luxury in which some churchmen live while supposedly serving the poor when switching out his mansion for the hospital, we don't see him directly criticize anyone else here. He's only focusing on his immediate community and his own actions. His charity is also in line with the expected role of a bishop, even if he's especially zealous in fulfilling his duties. Despite that, it's interesting to note that Myriel's hopefulness and persistence in the face of these social issues -- his mindset -- set him apart as much as his values. Although the title of the book leaves a certain impression (as do many of its sadder sections), it's ultimately a hopeful work (we saw this in the preface as well! The novel is needed "so long as" these social problems exist, implying that they could disappear one day). Myriel starts us off by showing the difference that a real commitment to improving the lives of others can have when paired with that hope and willingness to question social norms.

[nortism]

Les Misérables 1.2.13 vs Saul’s Conversion (Acts 9)

As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him.

Acts 9:3 (NIV)

He (Jean Valjean) no longer knew where he really was. Like an owl, who should suddenly see the sun rise, the convict had been dazzled and blinded, as it were, by virtue.

Les Misérables 1.2.13 (Hapgood)

He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”

Acts 9:4 (NIV)

He fell exhausted, on a large stone, his fists clenched in his hair and his face on his knees, and he cried, “I am a wretch!”

Then his heart burst, and he began to cry.

Les Misérables 1.2.13 (Hapgood)

And Ananias went his way and entered the house; and laying his hands on him he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you came, has sent me that you may receive your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” Immediately there fell from his eyes something like scales, and he received his sight at once; and he arose and was baptised.

Acts 9:17-18 (NIV)

That which was certain, that which he did not doubt, was that he was no longer the same man, that everything about him was changed, that it was no longer in his power to make it as though the Bishop had not spoken to him and had not touched him.

Les Misérables 1.2.13 (Hapgood)

[shitpostingfromthebarricade]

Sister Simplice:

Myriel when the cops show up at his house:

[lawisnotmocked]

Catching up on Les Mis letters for this year so I thought I’d share all my thoughts on the canine imagery from volume 1 book 1 in the same post.

The first instance of canine imagery in book 1 shows up in chapter 1.1.7 when Myriel wishes to cross the mountains to visit a small community of shepherds. The mayor warns him not to leave without an escort because of the threat of bandits but Myriel refuses the escort and tells the mayor he has no reason to fear them.

“But the brigands, Monseigneur?” “Hold,” said the Bishop, “I must think of that. You are right. I may meet them. They, too, need to be told of the good God.” “But, Monseigneur, there is a band of them! A flock of wolves!” “Monsieur le maire, it may be that it is of this very flock of wolves that Jesus has constituted me the shepherd. Who knows the ways of Providence?”

Wolves in Les Mis often represent two things - their position as powerful apex predators is often used to represent that a person has dangerous, malicious or violent intentions, but they’re also contrasted with dogs, a domestic canine with close proximity to human society, to show the ways certain people are prohibited from being part of society, usually because they’re in extreme poverty or are a criminal. Wolves are canines who are not allowed to participate in human society, and dogs are canines who are. Lots of people who are both violent and criminals get assigned wolf imagery, including Thenardier and Montparnasse.

In this case Cravatte and his bandits are wolves because they’re a dangerous group of highway robbers, but Myriel is also the shepherd for a flock of wolves because he’s the kind of bishop who goes out of his way to try and offer help to people who have otherwise been abandoned or cast out by the rest of society, including people like Valjean and Cravatte who had a reputation for being dangerous.

I love the way the imagery of Myriel being the shepherd for a flock of wolves ties in to the Christian symbolism of Jesus as a shepherd too it creates such a perfect mental image for me that represents this part of Myriel’s character so well 👌

Wolf imagery also shows up in the next chapter, 1.1.8, during Myriel’s conversation with the senator.

I am not enthusiastic over your Jesus, who preaches renunciation and sacrifice to the last extremity. ’Tis the counsel of an avaricious man to beggars. Renunciation; why? Sacrifice; to what end? I do not see one wolf immolating himself for the happiness of another wolf.

The reader is supposed to dislike the senator so him specifically comparing his personal philosophy to the behaviour of wolves might just be another way for Hugo to emphasise that he’s The Wrong One in this conversation. It could also be Hugo trying to make a point that a good society requires people to act with compassion and make sacrifices for each other or we may as well just be wolves instead of men? (violent and dangerous metaphorical wolves at least, not real wolves lol) I feel like parts of this chapter are definitely going over my head because it contains so much of Hugo’s Opinion on contemporary discussions so there might be something I’m missing here too.

[jelepermets]

Les Mis Letters: 1.1.5

Today I want to deep dive into M Myriel's travels. As a footnote puts it:

Ainsi Dieu partage-t-il avec les misérables cette forme d'anonymat qui résulte de la multiplicité des noms

Thus God shares with the miserables one this anonymous form, resulting in a multitude of names.

This really reminds me of an earlier footnote in 1.1.2:

Myriel est consacré Mgr Bienvenu par les paysans, dans une sorte de baptême populaire.

Myriel is consecrated Monseigneur Bienvenu by the populace, in a sort of popular baptism.

The idea that God rests within the populace, and shares more with the miserable ones than he does with the law or the Church is implied in the continual contrast between the ideal and the reality, the law of God and the law of man, human nature and the divine.

As Hugo portrays, God is not dissimilar from humanity, nor can the divine and the human be separated. They are like contrasting colors (hehe see what I did there). And God is best seen in the ways that people react to the poor masses, and the way the masses react in return.

[lesmisletters-daily]

Monseigneur Bienvenu Made His Cassocks Last Too Long

Les Mis Letters reading club explores one chapter of Les Misérables every day. Join us on Discord, Substack - or share your thoughts right here on tumblr - today's tag is #lm 1.1.5

The private life of M. Myriel was filled with the same thoughts as his public life. The voluntary poverty in which the Bishop of D—— lived, would have been a solemn and charming sight for any one who could have viewed it close at hand.

Like all old men, and like the majority of thinkers, he slept little. This brief slumber was profound. In the morning he meditated for an hour, then he said his mass, either at the cathedral or in his own house. His mass said, he broke his fast on rye bread dipped in the milk of his own cows. Then he set to work.

A Bishop is a very busy man: he must every day receive the secretary of the bishopric, who is generally a canon, and nearly every day his vicars-general. He has congregations to reprove, privileges to grant, a whole ecclesiastical library to examine,—prayer-books, diocesan catechisms, books of hours, etc.,—charges to write, sermons to authorize, curés and mayors to reconcile, a clerical correspondence, an administrative correspondence; on one side the State, on the other the Holy See; and a thousand matters of business.

What time was left to him, after these thousand details of business, and his offices and his breviary, he bestowed first on the necessitous, the sick, and the afflicted; the time which was left to him from the afflicted, the sick, and the necessitous, he devoted to work. Sometimes he dug in his garden; again, he read or wrote. He had but one word for both these kinds of toil; he called them <i>gardening</i>. “The mind is a garden,” said he.

Towards midday, when the weather was fine, he went forth and took a stroll in the country or in town, often entering lowly dwellings. He was seen walking alone, buried in his own thoughts, his eyes cast down, supporting himself on his long cane, clad in his wadded purple garment of silk, which was very warm, wearing purple stockings inside his coarse shoes, and surmounted by a flat hat which allowed three golden tassels of large bullion to droop from its three points.

It was a perfect festival wherever he appeared. One would have said that his presence had something warming and luminous about it. The children and the old people came out to the doorsteps for the Bishop as for the sun. He bestowed his blessing, and they blessed him. They pointed out his house to any one who was in need of anything.

Here and there he halted, accosted the little boys and girls, and smiled upon the mothers. He visited the poor so long as he had any money; when he no longer had any, he visited the rich.

As he made his cassocks last a long while, and did not wish to have it noticed, he never went out in the town without his wadded purple cloak. This inconvenienced him somewhat in summer.

On his return, he dined. The dinner resembled his breakfast.

At half-past eight in the evening he supped with his sister, Madame Magloire standing behind them and serving them at table. Nothing could be more frugal than this repast. If, however, the Bishop had one of his curés to supper, Madame Magloire took advantage of the opportunity to serve Monseigneur with some excellent fish from the lake, or with some fine game from the mountains. Every curé furnished the pretext for a good meal: the Bishop did not interfere. With that exception, his ordinary diet consisted only of vegetables boiled in water, and oil soup. Thus it was said in the town, <i>when the Bishop does not indulge in the cheer of a curé, he indulges in the cheer of a trappist</i>.

After supper he conversed for half an hour with Mademoiselle Baptistine and Madame Magloire; then he retired to his own room and set to writing, sometimes on loose sheets, and again on the margin of some folio. He was a man of letters and rather learned. He left behind him five or six very curious manuscripts; among others, a dissertation on this verse in Genesis, <i>In the beginning, the spirit of God floated upon the waters</i>. With this verse he compares three texts: the Arabic verse which says, <i>The winds of God blew;</i> Flavius Josephus who says, <i>A wind from above was precipitated upon the earth;</i> and finally, the Chaldaic paraphrase of Onkelos, which renders it, <i>A wind coming from God blew upon the face of the waters</i>. In another dissertation, he examines the theological works of Hugo, Bishop of Ptolemaïs, great-grand-uncle to the writer of this book, and establishes the fact, that to this bishop must be attributed the divers little works published during the last century, under the pseudonym of Barleycourt.

Sometimes, in the midst of his reading, no matter what the book might be which he had in his hand, he would suddenly fall into a profound meditation, whence he only emerged to write a few lines on the pages of the volume itself. These lines have often no connection whatever with the book which contains them. We now have under our eyes a note written by him on the margin of a quarto entitled <i>Correspondence of Lord Germain with Generals Clinton, Cornwallis, and the Admirals on the American station. Versailles, Poinçot, book-seller; and Paris, Pissot, bookseller, Quai des Augustins.</i>

Here is the note:—

“Oh, you who are!

“Ecclesiastes calls you the All-powerful; the Maccabees call you the Creator; the Epistle to the Ephesians calls you liberty; Baruch calls you Immensity; the Psalms call you Wisdom and Truth; John calls you Light; the Books of Kings call you Lord; Exodus calls you Providence; Leviticus, Sanctity; Esdras, Justice; the creation calls you God; man calls you Father; but Solomon calls you Compassion, and that is the most beautiful of all your names.”

Toward nine o’clock in the evening the two women retired and betook themselves to their chambers on the first floor, leaving him alone until morning on the ground floor.

It is necessary that we should, in this place, give an exact idea of the dwelling of the Bishop of D——

[shitpostingfromthebarricade]

Ah! Which Grantaire ramble, can you please remind me?

With every respect and in the spirit of amicable debate, I feel Hugo basically addresses your Nat Turner point in 1.1.10 in the Bishop's debate with Conventionist G——, quoted below the cut.

The Bishop felt, without, perhaps, confessing it, that something within him had suffered extinction. Nevertheless, he put a good face on the matter. He replied:— “The judge speaks in the name of justice; the priest speaks in the name of pity, which is nothing but a more lofty justice. A thunderbolt should commit no error.” And he added, regarding the member of the Convention steadily the while, “Louis XVII.?” The conventionary stretched forth his hand and grasped the Bishop’s arm. “Louis XVII.! let us see. For whom do you mourn? is it for the innocent child? very good; in that case I mourn with you. Is it for the royal child? I demand time for reflection. To me, the brother of Cartouche, an innocent child who was hung up by the armpits in the Place de Grève, until death ensued, for the sole crime of having been the brother of Cartouche, is no less painful than the grandson of Louis XV., an innocent child, martyred in the tower of the Temple, for the sole crime of having been grandson of Louis XV.” “Monsieur,” said the Bishop, “I like not this conjunction of names.” “Cartouche? Louis XV.? To which of the two do you object?” A momentary silence ensued. The Bishop almost regretted having come, and yet he felt vaguely and strangely shaken. The conventionary resumed:— “Ah, Monsieur Priest, you love not the crudities of the true. Christ loved them. He seized a rod and cleared out the Temple. His scourge, full of lightnings, was a harsh speaker of truths. When he cried, ‘Sinite parvulos,’ he made no distinction between the little children. It would not have embarrassed him to bring together the Dauphin of Barabbas and the Dauphin of Herod. Innocence, Monsieur, is its own crown. Innocence has no need to be a highness. It is as august in rags as in fleurs de lys.” “That is true,” said the Bishop in a low voice. “I persist,” continued the conventionary G—— “You have mentioned Louis XVII. to me. Let us come to an understanding. Shall we weep for all the innocent, all martyrs, all children, the lowly as well as the exalted? I agree to that. But in that case, as I have told you, we must go back further than ’93, and our tears must begin before Louis XVII. I will weep with you over the children of kings, provided that you will weep with me over the children of the people.” “I weep for all,” said the Bishop. “Equally!” exclaimed conventionary G——; “and if the balance must incline, let it be on the side of the people. They have been suffering longer.”

We already know about Hugo's feelings on John Brown, an American abolitionist executed for role in the 1859 raid/rebellion at Harpers Ferry, but given that Nat Turner's rebellion occurred in 1831, I'm really curious

1) What Hugo's thoughts and feelings were (or would have been if he'd known about it) at that time, and

2) If the Amis would have taken notice, if they might have taken action (a la Hugo writing to the US government in an attempt to gain sympathy/a pardon for Brown), or if they would have continued focusing on exactly what's in front of them in France.

Besides Feuilly's Poland comment (in canin he is explicitly described as having adopted the world, so this is somewhat unsurprising coming from him), which does indicate some knowledge of politics outside of France's realm of direct influence, I'm not sure I recall any of the Amis ever discussing the current events of other countries. Even France's colonial holdings at that time e.g. Haiti I don't recall ever being explicitly referred to by the Amis. Does their mission extend to Paris, to France, to France and "her holdings," or the world?